Relatives of NC man who killed family sue hospital

Published: Friday, September 30, 2011 at 2:03 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, September 30, 2011 at 2:03 p.m.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The relatives of a Charlotte man who killed three family members and himself are suing the Carolinas Healthcare System hospital where he had sought treatment the night before the killings, saying his care there was inadequate.

The Charlotte Observer reported (http://bit.ly/nsMxNj) that the family of Kenneth Chapman filed the lawsuit Thursday in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. The lawsuit argues that the 33-year-old Chapman received inadequate care when he went the mental health emergency room of Carolinas Medical Center-Randolph the night before the killings on March 16, 2010.

Police say he suffocated both his wife and the couple's 1-year-old and stabbed her 13-year-old daughter to death.

"These tragedies could have been prevented," wrote a team of lawyers representing Chapman's surviving relatives.

Jim Cooney, a Charlotte attorney representing the hospital, said the hospital is not to blame.

"This tragedy had been many months, if not many years, in the making. The cause of this tragedy was not medical malpractice, nor was it any policy established by the Carolinas HealthCare System," Cooney said in a statement.

"We believe that Mr. Chapman was appropriately seen, evaluated, monitored and treated on the two occasions that he came to CMC-Randolph," Cooney said.

When Chapman went to the emergency room the night before the killings, it was his second visit in two weeks. He said he was depressed and angry and thinking of killing his wife, The Charlotte Observer reported last year based on records it obtained.

Hospital staff sent him home with a prescription for antidepressants and anxiety medicine, and directions to call for a follow-up appointment, the newspaper reported. Police say that was the day that his wife, Nateesha Chapman, and the children, 13-year-old Na'Jhae Parker and 1-year-old Nakyiah Chapman, were killed.

Police said Chapman locked the children's bodies in an upstairs bedroom and forced his surviving children to live for the next two weeks as if nothing had happened. His 10-year-old daughter went to school while Chapman stayed home with her 2-year-old brother at their apartment.

Two weeks later, police checked on the family at the request of a concerned relative. The children ran from the house as Chapman fired at officers through the door. He then killed himself.

The family's attorneys said the burden for much of the killings rests on the mental health system's inadequate response to Chapman's threats.